Breaking News

Cornish Disabled Workers Face Redundancy

32 disabled workers at Remploy in Penzance are told they could lose their jobs.

It is as the government cuts funding.

Two thirds of factories across the UK face closure.

Ex-workers who are still on contracts could also be hit.

Unions are furious.

Phil Davies, GMB National Secretary for GMB Members working at Remploy said,

“This decision to sack 1,752 people in 36 Remploy factories across the country is one of the worst decision that this discredited coalition government has taken since coming to office.

The decision to close these 36 factories followed by the other 18 factories in due course is an attack on the most vulnerable members of our society. Thousands of disabled workers will now pay with their jobs for the incompetence of this government and other public sector bodies that did not take advantage of EU procurement rules that allow supported manufacturing jobs for disabled workers. These factories have lacked support for years and have never been properly loaded with enough work to make them economically viable.

I never thought that I would live to see the day that an organisation set up to provide sustainable employment for disabled people being shut down.

It is a disgrace that a number of large charities, set up to help disabled people and run by very well paid, able bodied people have misled the British public and provided the government with the cover to undertake this act of sacking disabled workers. Shame on them.”

Unite, Britain's biggest union, has called the UK government's decision to sack over 1,000 disabled workers at Remploy ‘Barbaric’.

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said:

"This is a barbaric decision. The government has sunk to a new low by sacking over 1,000 disabled workers.

"To choose to cut these jobs only a few days after the government passed the welfare bill is proof it has no intention of helping the most vulnerable in society, instead the coalition is only making life worse.

"In the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, these workers prospects of finding work are almost zero. Unite is determined to fight this decision."